_Cannes, April 22nd_.--I have just got the new number, and hasten to say how much I am pleased with the only article I have had time to read with care, the Alison.[Footnote: 'Alison's Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir C. Stewart,' April 1862.]Nothing can be more able or more triumphant, and it is quite fair and candid towards Castlereagh, and much more than fair towards Ch. Stewart, Indeed, if the letter to me deserves half what is said in its praise,[Footnote: _Sc_.' one of the most caustic and successful pamphlets that have appeared in defence of an unpopular cause.'] he never could have written it himself; and his gross stupidity in construing what I have said of his brother, and affixing a meaning which none but himself ever did, or could, was at the time admitted by his friends, whom he had consulted, and in spite of whom he had published--among others, Strangford, from whom I heard what had passed. I have a copy of my own, which I should like the author of the article to see, and shall send it through you when I return, for it is out of print. One of the blockhead's follies was the not perceiving how great a panegyric I had bestowed on his brother's speaking in the H. of Commons, after fully stating its defects. In fact, he had much greater weight as leader than Canning, who, by the way, is too much praised in the article. Such a book as Alison's is almost incredible for its badness of all kinds; but the author (on p. 521, line six from foot) gives him a pull or two as to style by 'ineligible for election'--though that is a trifle. The care with which the whole subject is treated, and the gross errors--partly from ignorance, partly from adulation--exposed is quite admirable. I have naturally been attracted to the Monument article, but have not had time fully to profit by it; only I am greatly indebted to the learned author for what he says of my Grantham address.[Footnote: 'Public Monuments,' April 1862, p. 550.] However, I should have been far better pleased had he left me out altogether, and dwelt at more length on the disgrace of the country never having erected a monument to the greatest man she ever produced--indeed, the greatest [that has] ever been. He seems not to be aware of the one in Westminster Abbey having been raised by his niece's family, and not by the public.